The No. 1 Jackrabbits tipped off against Omaha to open the Men’s Quarterfinals at the 2022 Summit League Basketball Tournament Saturday evening. Both teams paced with each other through the start of the game, as Omaha led 8-7 after four minutes. Charlie Easley hammered a three-pointer at the 14-minute mark bringing the SDSU crowd to life.
A quarter of the way through the game, Frankie Fidler led the Omaha scoring effort with 11 of the team’s 16 points. On the other end of the court, SDSU’s scoring effort was spread over Douglas Wilson, Charlie Easley, and Baylor Scheierman.
Near the 8:30 mark in the first half, the Mavs took a 28-22 lead over the Jacks. Matt Mims netted a shot just under five minutes to regain the lead, which was quickly eliminated when Omaha sank two from the charity stripe. Dentlinger then tied it at 33. That was followed by an alley oop to Wilson to fire up the fans.
At the end of an eventful first half, Scheierman banked one around before it fell in for 3, giving the Jacks a 48-42 lead over the Mavericks. Fidler finished the first half with 22 for Omaha, while Wilson led SDSU with 12. Dentlinger led SDSU’s rebounding effort at the half with 6.
Omaha opened the second half with a nearly two-minute scoring drought, of which SDSU took advantage to jump out to a 56-44 lead. At the 11-minute mark in the second half, Fidler led Omaha with 26 points, while Wilson and Scheierman had netted 18 each, totaling over half of SDSU’s 64 points. Heading under 10 minutes, SDSU led 66-56.
SDSU led for the majority of the game, but Omaha kept it within 12 until the Jacks led 76-62 at the 6-minute mark. SDSU sealed it up and advanced to the semifinals behind a combined 42 points from Wilson and Scheierman for an 87-79 win over Omaha.
For Omaha, Fidler finished with 34 points and 3 rebounds, while Felix Lemetti dropped 13 points and 3 rebounds. Dylan Brougham and Marco Smith also notched 8 points each. For SDSU, Wilson netted 23 points, followed by Scheierman’s 20. The pair grabbed a combined 10 boards. Matt Dentlinger and Luke Appel also put up 9 points each for the Jacks.
SDSU improved to 28-4 on the season, while Omaha finished the 2022 season 5-26.